Tag Archives: thanks

Update Diary: Hell/Dolls (May 15th, 2025)

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Hello again everyone!  A new month, a new update on the progress of my story.  Summer this year is going to be busy, but I will keep updating my progress at least once a month.

Here are the stats for today:

Current Chapter: 9 (Truths and Lies)

Pages: 112

Current Word Count: 59,215

As y’all can see, I’m plugging away at the story at a breakneck pace compared to the last few months.  I did remember this time to omit the counting for the title page and Table of Contents, so these numbers are for the raw story.

I do have something I’d like to ask of anyone willing to answer:

Do you prefer stories with chapter titles, or just chapter numbers?

I personally like stories with chapter titles in case I take a long break from reading something – the names help me remember what is currently happening.  The current story for Hell/Dolls has chapter names (primarily to find story points easily when editing), but I know that a lot of mainstream YA novels don’t have them.

Once I start releasing the chapters, I’d like to consistently provide chapter names if the public prefers.  Ultimately it’s a personal choice, but I’d like to know what others think.

For now, please be patient for the release of the prelude and first chapter!  Thank you to all who read my ramblings and stories!

-Marcosias

I didn’t forget!

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Hello, all!  I promise I didn’t forget to do my updates, and the Hell/Dolls progress update will still be provided before the 20th!

To be honest, I have a couple of reviews that I want to release, I just need to buckle down and finish them.  There were a couple series that I ended up watching that deserve some attention, and I want to release at least two of them before the end of next month.

Life has been a little busier than I was expecting it to be these past 30 days – I won’t go into too much detail, but I’m dealing with a bigger workload than usual currently.  I hope to be able to explain this more clearly soon.

In other news, Monster Hunter Wilds released, and I’m enjoying it more than I expected… maybe a little too much.  I’ve managed to stay at about four hours per week for this game so it doesn’t impact my other duties (the blog, reviewing material, work, and my regularly-scheduled events), but I can’t express how much I want to play it more.

Maybe I’ll do a Game Review on it after I beat the story.  Maybe I’ll let players enjoy it on their own.  We’ll see.

For now, keep your heads up, and do your best!  I believe in you!

-Marcosias

Update Diary: Hell/Dolls (January 19, 2025)

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Today, another update on the webnovel to-be!  I’ve been working very hard on progressing the novel in my free time, though it may mean that my reviews are starting to become harder to complete…

In any case, here’s the current stats on the story:

Current Chapter: 9

Pages: 102

Total Word Count: 47,222

I’ve also started using some apps to help me find problems with my story: specifically “tome” and “AutoCrit”.

I’ve been using tome sparingly, but it helps me clarify my goals for the story, character motivations, and basic flow.  To be honest, I’ve mainly been writing this stuff down and addressing inconsistencies with it.

AutoCrit, on the other hand, I’ve started using at the start of this year.  I upload the document, analyze it in various parts, and the program tells me what my plot points are for each chapter, inconsistencies, plot threads that remain unexplored, and character points that have been and need to be addressed.  There are things that AutoCrit gets wrong, and items that it doesn’t quite understand correctly, but overall it helps me identify problems with the story as I write (though when I upload incomplete chapters, it is annoying when it points out that threads I’m working on are not resolved).

Regarding the story itself, chapters 8 and 9 shift the focus from the main character, Vincent, to a couple of the supporting characters.  I might edit how these chapters flow by the time I release chapters 0 and 1, since it’s a little jarring as of now.  We’ll see.

I am PAINFULLY aware that I am late on this post, so apologies in advance.  I still have at least two reviews to complete for content this month, so stay tuned for those.

Update Diary: Hell/Dolls Update 12/31/24

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Good day to all!

Today, I’d like to provide a short update on my Hell/Dolls story, as it stands right now (though, truth be told, I started this article on the 23rd).

As it stands, here are the statistics I have:

Current Chapter: 8 (Talks and Whispers – tentative name)

Pages: 89

Total Word Count: 41,110

So, something some of you may have noticed is that the word count hasn’t gone up much despite entering a new chapter (the last update had 37,185 words, so barely over 4,000 words since the last update).  Part of this is that I went back some days and reconfigured some wording and events, but the other part of this is that I haven’t been able to work on this story as much as I would have liked.  Between a surprise guest in our household and holiday hours at work, the most I’ve been able to do is finish this chapter (a little abruptly), start the new chapter, and review what I’ve written and edit the errors out.

All in all, this is a short update telling you that I have indeed been working on the story despite my personal life.  I have been able to do some work on my reviews during the weekends, but my story has suffered a little due to this.

Update (12/30/24): So, this WAS supposed to come out this morning, but I forgot.  Instead, I’m sscheduling it for the ACTUAL end-of-the-year post.

I did want to address the decision I made regarding the novel’s release – I have decided to release the first four chapters (as well as the prelude) once I reach chapter 10, on FictionPress as I normally do.  My train of thought is that by the time I get to Chapter 10, the wording for the story should be finalized, or at the very least need miniscule changes.  I will also probably do an audio recording at some point, both for myself and for the readers.

What this basically means for the novelization is that it probably won’t be available on hardcopy, unfortunately – I think that releasing the story for free gives more access to people who want to read it, and it gives me less of a headache trying to find a publisher, dealing with fees, and other problems that come with publishing full-on books.

On the plus side, this means that once I feel a chapter is done, it will be available to read (and record).  I won’t (or, will try not to) edit any posted chapters, and I’ll probably start a ko-fi or pull up my Patreon for anyone who wants to support me monetarily.  Both links will come soon.

For now, keep an eye out for the first few releases!  I hope to have them ready by mid-2025.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

-Marcosias the Isif

A Gentle Update

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Good morrow, my fellow readers and watchers!

I just wanted to provide an update on some stuff going on in my life – both to clarify future posts on the blog and to give myself a to-do list.

Firstly, I haven’t forgotten about Kizumonogatari.  I have the review started, but I need to rewatch it while writing, which for a subbed anime with lots (and I mean LOTS) of text notes and Japanese-language jokes, is not easy.  I am taking my time writing this one because I truly love the Monogatari Series, and I want to give unbiased, fair, and clear commentary on these movies.  If I haven’t already said, I’ll be doing separate reviews for each of the three movies to fully hit home what I think of them.

Secondly, the Hell/Dolls story updates.  I do still want to do regular progress updates on this story, but with how infrequently I write, and how varied my writing sessions end up, I realize that every month on the 15th probably won’t work.  I do still want to update y’all every month, but just know that I probably won’t be able to do it at consistent times every month.  It will most likely be on the back end of each month, as I generally maintain better writing schedules in the middle of the month due to work.

Thirdly, random reviews and other anime and game reviews are still planned (I’ve got a few in the pipeline now), and I will still post at least one anime review each month, not including the Monogatari Series ones.  The quick reviews segment I did in the last period I was posting could make a comeback if there’s enough demand, and I happen to have the time to watch a few episodes of a lot of anime, which could definitely happen when things slow down.  Game reviews, unfortunately, will be on the back burner for the foreseeable future, as I generally don’t have the time or money for new games… though I do have an extensive Steam backlog that I could review, given some free time.  We’ll see.

Lastly, I just want to note that I will try my damndest to give my readers updates on anything I can: if there’re more reviews than usual planned, life events that prevent me from uploading, or sudden desires to update my older stories (like Touhou, which is somehow still getting new readers despite not being updated since 2018).  Y’all are my go-to updates over Facebook and Twitter (currently X), and I want you to know that I respect that, since some of you have been with me since high school.

Thanks for listening, I promise a new review will drop soon (probably not Kizumono, but something).

Happy Holidays!

-Marcosias